Great Salt Lake......Not So Great

From Dinosaur National Monument we headed west on hwy 40 and continued our trip towards Heber City, UT.

It was Father's day while we were traveling and that morning we gave Diego his cards and in the evening drove to Provo, UT to see the new Avengers movie.

As we drove, the dry heat continued to beat down and the landscape around us was desert-like and we went through several small towns.  As we got closer to the city where we would be staying the landscape became more green and lush with very pretty mountains around.

There were not a ton of great options for campgrounds near the area that we were headed so we opted for a resort this week.  When we pulled in Sofia and Luna looked around and said something like.......Oh my gosh, where are we?  This is so fancy :)

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We stayed at Mountain Valley Resort and yes, it was fancy.  Not a camping experience really.  More of a resort for sure.  It was nice to have all the amenities and be spoiled for a week.  There was a pool and it was all I could to do to get them away from all the kids at the pool to go explore a few of the days.

Spent an afternoon in Park City, UT which was about 20 mins down the road.  Cute ski town.



During the week I took them to Bridal Veil Falls and we played in the pool at the bottom for a while, pet fish, and then hiked up to the base of the falls.

After that we drove through Provo Canyon and went to Timpanogos Cave National Monument.



When we arrived we realized that we needed to book our tour of the cave in advance because the next available tour was going to be in 2 hours.  The hike up to the entrance was  going to be quite steep and it was close to 100 degrees, so we decided we had seen enough caves in the past few months and drove deeper into the national forest to a place called Cascade Springs.  A beautiful area.

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It was getting late so we took a mystery road down the other side of the mountain hoping that my instincts were correct that it would save us a 2 hour drive back the way we came into the forest. After a bumpy 30 minute ride on a dirt road we arrived back to Heber City.  It was probably a micro second before they had their bathing suits back on and were in the pool with their friends.  Lucky for them we still have daylight up until close to 10pm.  That makes bedtime a little tricky.

We found a super cool kids playground wooden castle and even better it had tennis courts right next to the play area.  It was a fun evening for all of us :)

There was more entertainment than just the play castle.  A baby pet racoon that was so sweet.

A pet racoon.  Yes, it had it's shots :)

Had a day in Salt Lake City and took the long way through Cottonwood Canyon.  Beautiful views and passed lots of ski runs.

 

Set Diego up and headed out to see the actual Great Salt Lake.  I had read google reviews and it seemed like it was worth our drive out, but it was a little disappointing.  Very hot and tons of bugs, but we weren't ready to give up so we rented a little paddle boat to get out on the lake and explore.





There was a thin film of bugs on the top surface of the lake so the girls would not get in the water, but we could see clear to the bottom and that was great.  Apparently if we had dared to get in the water we would have floated right to the top because the concentration of salt is so high in the water.

 After our paddle boating we went down to the "beach" and it hit our noses and almost knocked us to the floor.  We later learned it was the smell of one of the few living creatures in the lake, Brine Shrimp.



We made a B-line for the visitors center, explored a little bit and then headed back to the city.  We drove through downtown and passed Temple Square for a little tour before we had to get back and retrieve Diego from his coffee house post.

That weekend was my birthday and after a busy week all I wanted to do was sit by the pool, relax and go somewhere for lunch.  Diego got a tres leches cake and we shared some with our friends at the park.



Great friends were made and it was a great week.